


love ain't never been so close

by serendipitee



Category: GOT7
Genre: Alternate Universe - Single Parents, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Drunken Shenanigans, Light Angst, M/M, Maknae Line are Literally Babies, Minor Im Jaebum | JB/Mark Tuan, Size Kink, Strangers to Lovers, camboy au, well not babies but wee ones
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2019-12-30 18:29:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18320849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serendipitee/pseuds/serendipitee
Summary: Jinyoung has a pretty boring, relatively average life as a teacher at an international kindergarten. Jackson has a pretty boring, relatively average life as a single dad to a five-year-old.Then they meet. Things get more complicated after that.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This could alternatively be titled: Jinyoung embarrassing himself over and over again in front of a hot dad -- the fic.
> 
>  _Love ain't never been so close, but so far away_ from [down for you by kehlani feat bj the chicago kid](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY0DCUSMfZc)
> 
> thank you so much to my babies [sabeen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/danteandbeatrice) and [mia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/subsequence) who listened to me scream and cry and fret over this and encouraged me thru it :*
> 
> let me know if there's anything here that you want me to tag!~~~

Now this is bullshit.

Jinyoung loves his job. He is good at his job. He has fun at his job almost every single day. He gets to do what he's always wanted to do for a living. But then things like this kill his buzz.

Three of the boys in his kindergarten class have been getting very creative with the finger paints in the art classroom; that is, they have harnessed their creativity by dipping fingers through every single color simultaneously and smearing it with artistic grace all over their canvases — themselves and each other. Youngjae and Yugyeom had big sad eyes when they came to Jinyoung after their art period but Bambam had scowled, then grinned up at him with streaks of orange-yellow still on his cheeks. An unrepentant instigator.

Apparently this incident required more than a simple scolding, if the art teacher had anything to say about it. She sent the lot of them home with write-ups and even went so far as to tell Jinyoung in no uncertain terms that he had a responsibility to tell each and every one of their parents about the incident.

Which has led to the current bullshit. Jinyoung already spends nearly every waking hour running after and gently chastising and doting on and thinking about his kids. He pours his heart and soul into helping them grow into the best tiny humans they can be. That’s why, most of the time, he isn’t torn up by preparing for parent-teacher conferences. It’s usually a formality; it’s usually just a way for the parents that spend so much money to send their kids here to hear how bright and wonderful those kids almost always are. 

If there is a real problem to be discussed, Jinyoung doesn’t have any trouble carefully bringing it up, because he knows it's within reason. He knows that kids can have a hard time understanding the meaning behind rules and regulations set out for them at this age. He knows that a lot of these parents worked especially hard just so their kids could have a shot at this - a better life than they had growing up, and better chances to succeed. That’s not always easy.

But a painting catastrophe? That seems a little ridiculous. Sure, they're here to learn, not play around all day, but Yugyeom just turned five a few weeks ago. He's still practically a baby.

And an art teacher that didn't see the artistic value of covering yourself and your friends in paint really couldn't be that creative, could she?

Jinyoung pouts, setting his chin in his hand. "Am I being uncharitable by saying that, hyung?"

His former mentor and current friend and co-teacher Shownu grins and shrugs across the tiny corner table they claimed at their favorite weekend spot, popping a sushi roll into his mouth. "Yes, I think you are. You're not wrong, though."

Current best friend and permanent pain in the ass music teacher Jaebeom crows a surprised laugh around his beer bottle at their hyung being so forthcoming. "I'm glad we all agree." He shakes his head as if trying to clear it. "I just don't understand. If I can spend all day watching and listening to snot-nosed brats butchering classical music then she should be able to handle a couple of kids playing too much with washable paints. Maybe she's just kind of a b—"

Shownu cuts him off before the end of the thought. "So anyway, Jinyoung, what else have you been up to? Outside of school?"

Jinyoung gears up to say something about the new space fantasy series he's reading before Jaebeom cuts him off through the Saturday night din. "Come on, hyung, you know how much of a homebody our Jinyoungie is. He probably started reading a new Star Wars book or something."

"I—” Jinyoung splutters. "It's not a Star Wars book, you ass."

“That’s ass hyung to you.” 

_“Hyung,_ respectfully, you’re a moron.” 

Jinyoung gets back to his apartment that night drunk and a little late for his internal schedule, kicking his shoes off into the growing pile by the door, hurrying inside. 

Jinyoung is a creature of habit, this is true. He also doesn’t really enjoy socializing very often like most late-twenty-somethings apparently do. But as much as Jaebeom makes fun of him for his nearly hermit levels of homebody-ness, he does have some spiciness behind the scenes.

Not that he would ever tell him that.

Jinyoung starts shucking off his pants before he even gets into his bedroom, unbuttoning and unbuckling and unzipping the khakis in a rush, head spinning a little from the alcohol. He had discarded his laptop in the mess and tangle of his bedsheets earlier, accidentally concealing it enough now for him to have to scramble around to find it with his trousers hanging off his hips.

He's late to the stream, but it's not over yet. Jinyoung breathes a sigh of relief.

KingPuppy is wearing a mask as always. This looks a fair bit like a domino, like a superhero sidekick would wear, covering his nose and eyes and grazing his cheekbones. Judging by the nest of multicolored spandex and silky fabric pooled around the man’s knees, that’s probably exactly what his gimmick was. 

His body is gloriously tan for how late into the fall it is. Jinyoung wonders, hazily, as he watches the guy smooth his hands down his defined stomach, over his tattooed pec, if his skin just always looks like that, if it’s always so golden and lovely, dwelling under his clothes where only a lucky few like Jinyoung get to see it.

He’s wearing pretty red lace panties today. Jinyoung’s mouth goes dry at the sight of his thumbs playing along the top edge, flipping the elastic playfully inside out and back again. All the comments in the stream are begging him to take it off, to show everyone what’s underneath, but Jinyoung likes this part — the part where Puppy gets all coy and teasing, how he works all of his viewers up before getting to the grand finale. 

Despite the cheesy name and the thick brushstroke-lines of the cheesy _wang_ tattoo on his hip bone, Jinyoung finds this camboy and his expert way of working the crowd refreshing. Compared to all of the severe, veiny, fake-moaning, money-shot dependent porn he’s seen in his day, it’s exciting; he’s light-hearted, and super sexy and fun, and because of that Jinyoung’s been watching KingPuppy for years.

It shows in moments like this: “I probably should be more in character, shouldn’t I?” the camboy asks, smirking. He rubs the heel of his hand down the line of his cock in his underwear, just barely concealed spare a tiny piece of swollen red skin — the tip, just spilling over the top of the panties, just enough for Jinyoung to salivate. _“Oh, Bruce, thank you so much for rescuing me. You’re the best,”_ he says in English, voice going chirpy and high. _“I know just how to repay you.”_

The wicked edge to his grin makes Jinyoung’s interested cock leap to attention. Puppy sucks his bottom lip under his front teeth, opens his eyes wide and beseeching behind his mask. Jinyoung stifles a groan as he lets it out, puffed up and pink to match the shiny head of his cock, rubbing spit off the corner of his mouth with the pad of his thumb. 

One of the commenters prods him about the sweet voice. “Take it easy on me,” he says, back to Korean, grinning. “I’m not a nerd like some of you guys obviously are, I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Jinyoung sighs, settling into the familiarity of the man’s teasing, laying his hand over the bulge in his underwear to soothe it. KingPuppy likes doing these themes every now and then and asks his viewers for suggestions and ideas. That means every week things might change, but one thing is consistent: Jinyoung doesn’t like touching himself before the camboy does it. 

There’s no real moral reasoning for it. It just feels rude, especially after having watched him for so long. And it’s not much of a stretch to say that he also likes being able to feel like they’re getting off together, regardless of how impossible that actually is.

It also feels good, buzzing under his skin just thinking about how he’s avoiding the temptation. This far into his subscription, KingPuppy’s voice is all Jinyoung needs for his whole body to react, like a dog whistle. Every time he can avoid instantly stuffing his hand down his pants and coming into his fist feels like a victory.

KingPuppy doesn’t usually wait for a certain amount of tips to finally touch himself, like some other cammers do, but it seems like he’s feeling extra flirty tonight, tempting the viewers into it and smiling extra sweet when they pour in simultaneously.

“I’m glad you guys want to play with me tonight,” he says. “We’re going to have fun.”

Jinyoung manages to hold off on even taking his pants all the way off until KingPuppy decides to show them exactly how much ‘fun’ he had been having on his own before the stream. He turns away from the camera, flimsy panties still on, and pulls them to the side to show them the pink wet stretch of his asshole around a glass plug.

 _”It just feels so good to be filled up,”_ the cammer says, back to English, arching his back, putting the incredible heart shape of his ass and thighs on full display. He reaches between his legs to pull at the base of the plug, and the panting, whining, squelching noises that follow are finally what makes Jinyoung break, pushing his pants and boxers down to his knees, hissing when his hand finally wraps around his cock. This counts as waiting for him to touch himself, surely. 

He pumps himself imagining just how tight the camboy might feel around him instead, stomach flipping over and over. The muscles in KingPuppy’s back tense and curve and Jinyoung wishes he could feel them under his hands, wants to trace down the midline of his spine with his mouth, fantasizes about the way his hole would suck Jinyoung’s cock in eagerly.

It feels so good for Jinyoung to finally get a hand on himself that he nearly doesn’t notice KingPuppy trading out the plug for an oversized black and glittery gold dildo that’s practically dripping with lube. It’s massively thick; through the camera lens it seems like it’s nearly as big around as Jinyoung’s forearm, but the camboy just starts to take it, centimeter by centimeter. 

Jinyoung watches with bated breath, wishing he could see exactly what KingPuppy’s face looked like as he was stretching himself, taking it all. 

As if reading his thoughts, the camboy turns back toward the camera, sitting up and wiggling out of the panties. His cock is positively weeping, smearing precum messy against his wrist and his stomach and then dripping down onto the sheets below when it’s freed. Jinyoung can hear himself groaning but barely feels it, focused on watching the camboy position the fake cock underneath him and slowly, carefully start sinking down onto it. 

The definition in his stomach goes into sharp relief as he does, abs clenching then relaxing in a staccato beat. The camboy moans, circles his hips like the feeling of only part of it inside is overwhelming. Jinyoung squeezes around his own cock, moving his hand quicker in time with KingPuppy’s languid bobs up and down the dildo. He wonders if the man rode him, sat in his lap and slid down his cock, would he like it just as much? Would he be on the edge just from Jinyoung fucking up into his tight heat, leaving his untouched cock to bounce and spurt between them; would he come, hot and sticky between their stomachs and keep riding Jinyoung anyway until he let go too?

“Fuck,” Jinyoung murmurs, goosebumps racing down his neck. He lurches forward toward the computer and sends a coin while the camboy’s throat goes long, Adam’s apple bobbing as he whines, finally bottoming out. “God.”

He doesn’t say it out loud — can’t bear even the idea of being embarrassingly more into this show enough to talk back when no one but him can hear — but in his mind the sound of him goading the other man on, encouraging him, telling him how incredible he looks pinned like this rings clear and bright. He knows how much KingPuppy gets off on the praise, has seen just how much it makes him flush with pride, how it makes him open up like a flower, pink and red all over. Right now, Jinyoung wants to spread him out like that and tell him every little detail about how good he is.

The little _ping_ of the tip being received rings out at the camboy’s end, and he seems encouraged by it, fucking himself back up and down on the dildo smoothly, thighs flexing. _“Am I doing a good job, Bruce? You like seeing me riding your cock like this?”_

Jinyoung huffs on a chuckle at the smirk that appears on KingPuppy’s face. The fact that the camboy just looks like that, jokes around like that stretched and riding the girth of a fat fake cock electrifies Jinyoung down to his toes. He’s clearly affected, squirming, but he’s still playing around. He’s flushing from his cheeks all the way down his neck, rosy in the crux of his elbow as he lifts up his hand to his mouth again. 

He licks the pads of his first two fingers, slithers his tongue between them wet and vibrant and it pulls deep in Jinyoung’s stomach, yanks harder when he sucks the fingers in between his thick lips. Jinyoung’s dick twitches and drools in his hand, urges him to go faster, faster, faster. He thinks about sticking his own fingers in the camboy’s mouth; envisions the way the other man’s lips would stretch around his knuckles and how he would suckle at the tips like candy, like he’d never tasted anything sweeter.

Jinyoung shudders and slows down, squeezing at the base of his cock to try and keep the shivery feeling sliding down his spine from overwhelming him. God forbid he miss the grand finale of the show. The camboy is bouncing in earnest now, legs spread so everyone can see, and he’s panting from the effort, muscles in his hips and his stomach drawn up tight.

KingPuppy moans loud around his hand when he adds another finger inside, his pace fucking down onto the dildo stuttering before speeding up. Jinyoung’s own skin starts to tingle and itch, the urge to come rising just underneath the surface. He relaxes, fights against the mounting need by just letting his hand go limp around himself, swallowing hard against the instinctual whine that causes.

The camboy is gasping so often at this point he has to take his fingers out of his mouth. They leave trails of saliva all over his chin, drooling over his lip even as he leans forward on both hands and ruts down and back, fucking himself deep. “Ah, fuck. God, I don’t think I can — I want to — please, please please.” 

Jinyoung leaps at the opportunity, scrambling for his computer, tipping him and typing as fast as he can. 

**peachypjy:** _come for us, puppy. you’ve been such a good boy, you should come for us._

The man on screen cries out like he’s in pain, whining something in messy Chinese like he always does when he’s close. Jinyoung watches, hand tightening back around himself, jerking hard and fast as the other man’s cock jumps unaided, without a single thing having rubbed or brushed against it. 

KingPuppy’s chest heaves, mouth gaping as he sobs and comes completely untouched. The man shakes his way through it, finally allowing himself to grab his cock when the stream of come dribbling out from him seems like it’s ending, circling fingers tight around the head and milking himself dry to the point of trembling.

“Fucking Christ,” Jinyoung groans, already wearing thin, feeling his head go woozy, toeing at the edge. He watches in a locked-in daze as the man dismounts from the huge dildo, legs shaking, grinning all fucked-out and lazy. 

He flops down onto his front, ass to the camera again, and huffs into the sheets for a second. Jinyoung knows better than to let that trick him into thinking the camboy is done.

Like clockwork, he watches KingPuppy slide his knees underneath him and arch his back, sliding his hand between his thighs all slick from lube and rubbing circles tenderly, gently at his swollen hole. Jinyoung wants to put his mouth on it. The tiny, high sound the camboy makes from the touch barely reaches Jinyoung’s ears but it’s the thing that finally hits him like a punch in the stomach, legs spasming, coming in the tight curl of his fist.

The aftershocks crest before he even finishes, twitching in his fingers and toes and tickling down the back of his neck, kicking in his chest as the camboy rubs and writhes and keeps Jinyoung inextricably within his clutches all the while.

-

Jinyoung waves one last cheerful goodbye at Bambam as his mom and sister drag him out of the room and breathes a sigh of relief when they’re out of earshot.

Youngjae, Bambam and Yugyeom ended up being his last three appointments for parent-teacher conference night and the end is so close he can taste it. The sky outside his classroom window has been dark for what feels like an eternity, and he’s completely worn down from the full day’s schedule. Youngjae and Bambam’s parents had taken the art class fiasco story pretty well, thankfully, and now the only thing standing between Jinyoung and a beer before crashing facedown into his mattress is Yugyeom and his dad.

When Jinyoung had received his troublemaking triplets back from the fateful painting class, they had all reacted differently to him asking about what happened: Youngjae, usually one of his kids he could depend on for a sunshiney smile and cheery disposition, had shuffled up to him with teary eyes and an apologetic slump to his shoulders. Bambam was huffy and pouting, angrier than anything while Jinyoung was trying hard not to smile down at the swirls of blues and purples and polka dots up and down his arms.

Yugyeom by contrast was his regular self — maybe too talkative for his own good. “I’m sorry, seonsaengnim. We wasted valuable teaching time, that’s what Teacher Jeon said. She told me I’m bad at sitting still but my daddy says I’m just an excitable baby but I’m not a baby, seonsaengnim, I’m five!” He managed to get it all out in a single rush of breath, sticking his hand out demonstratively, fingers all spread out to enumerate his tiny lifetime. 

Jinyoung’s eye twitches, remembering. It’s not really Teacher Jeon’s place to reprimand any of them to such a high degree; even more so, it’s not her place to tell a kid that just recently turned five years old that he’s ‘bad’ at sitting still. They’re all bad at sitting still, as they should be at that age. 

Kids their age still have the excitement of the whole world ahead of them, and it feels almost cruel to strip them of their energetic response to it and call it a lack of concentration. It feels wrong to take happy kids and tell them the things that they want to do are wrong, or not good enough, or will be their downfall.

Okay, so maybe Jinyoung took it a little personally...but that’s beside the point. 

What he knows of Yugyeom’s father now, besides the fact that he has a sword in nearly every drawing the kid makes of him, is that he says that Yugyeom’s inability to stay still is because he’s “an excitable baby.” It worries him just a little, in the unlikely case that his dad is one of those parents that makes excuses for their kids’ behavior rather than trying to understand it.

He can hear a ruckus before he can even see them. Yugyeom says something in loud, slurry English that Jinyoung has trouble making out — maybe _creature?_ — and a louder, amused voice corrects him: _“Teacher Park,_ Yugyeommie.”

“That’s what I said!” Yugyeom insists, yelling, and his dad laughs. The sound rings loud over the laminate tile floors and drills into Jinyoung’s ears, threatening to build a home on top of the headache already forming in his temples. The pitch is so high it matches with his son’s delighted yelp when he bounds into the doorway of Jinyoung’s classroom. 

Jinyoung smiles wide at the kid’s sloppy bow and dips his head in return. “Good evening, Yugyeom-ah. How are you?”

“I’m fine, thank you! How are you?” he says sweetly, unfailingly polite — for once. Probably since his dad is there. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a dad-like shape paused by the door and stands to greet him.

“I’m doing well, thank you for asking,” he says, laughing when Yugyeom reaches up to shake his hand with his chubby little fingers. He’s still got a smile on his face when he looks up to take Yugyeom’s dad’s hand and —

And he stops a little short, because the guy standing in front of him does not look like anyone’s dad. He’s young; he can’t be very much older than Jinyoung himself. There’s linework from a tattoo on his chest showing through his white shirt. And he’s — he’s a little smaller than Jinyoung, but the grin and the confident way his big brown eyes meet Jinyoung’s make him seem larger than life. A glint of a silver necklace peeks out from the unbuttoned collar of the fitted dress shirt and his navy slacks leave pretty much nothing about the thickness of his thighs to imagination. 

God. He’s hot.

He squeezes Jinyoung’s hand at the end of their handshake and Jinyoung flushes, embarrassed when the other man’s smile morphs into a knowing smirk. 

Getting caught checking out his last parent of the night. Jinyoung’s really going to need a drink after this. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Wang.”

“You as well, seonsaengnim. Gyeommie never shuts up about you, ya know,” he says, rolling over any potential awkwardness. He sends a fond, playful glare down at his kid. “I’m starting to think I’m not his favorite anymore.”

Yugyeom distractedly plays with the rings on his dad’s right hand, fiddling with the red string bracelet around his wrist. “You’re not. Bambam is, obviously.”

Wang’s jaw drops, and before Jinyoung can let himself laugh at the gobsmacked expression he points to one of the tables across the room where he had arranged some butcher paper and coloring utensils. “Yugyeom-ah, why don’t you go draw something for your dad? The grown-ups have a few things to talk about.”

“What things?” he asks, frowning. 

His dad pats the back of his small hand gently. “Boring grown-up stuff. Go ahead, _bao,_ draw you and your friends in class for me and we’ll put it up on the refrigerator when we get home, okay?”

Yugyeom nods, excited about the idea of showing it off, and zooms away.

Jinyoung motions for Wang to sit in the adult-sized chair he’d dragged in from Jaebeom’s music room across the hall. “I'm guessing we're your last appointment of the night?” The other man clicks his tongue and rubs at the 5 o’clock shadow on his chin. “Sorry to keep you here so late. I've been working a lot of overtime since the holidays are coming up.”

“It's no problem at all,” Jinyoung lies as he sits behind his desk. He’s exhausted but this is important. “I do have one question for you, though, Mr. Wang.”

“Please, call me Jackson,” he insists. He smiles at Jinyoung, flashing pretty white teeth. Something about it is vaguely familiar.

Jinyoung nods and digs his fingers into his thigh. _Relax._ It’s not like he’s never seen a hot guy before. He’s just...really, really hot. “Jackson-ssi,” he says, genuinely curious as he pushes a color-filled sheet of paper towards Jackson, “why is it that your son always draws the two of you with swords in his art?”

He looks down at the crayon art, surprised for a second, and then barks a laugh. “Oh my god! I can understand how weird that must look. I was a professional fencer once upon a time. Yugyeom probably thinks that’s more interesting to draw than the account auditing paperwork I do now.”

“Fencing? Wow.” You don’t hear that everyday. “Can I ask…?” He trails off, unsure whether the other man will want to talk about the end of his previous career.

“Tore my ACL and meniscus,” Jackson says, rubbing his left kneecap like he can feel the phantom pain behind it. “Surgery didn’t do enough to get me back up. But everything happens for a reason.” He traces over the edge of Yugyeom’s drawing of the two of them and smiles down at it, eyes soft. When he looks up at Jinyoung his tenderness is still evident. “Can I keep this?”

Jinyoung melts just a little. “Of course.” He watches Jackson carefully fold the page and tuck it into his breast pocket, patting it down flat, palm over his heart. 

He’s not wearing a wedding ring. Not that Jinyoung was looking.

It’s easy to talk about Yugyeom between the two of them. He’s bright and energetic and has a big heart; he’s really a joy to have in class. That’s not even a fib on Jinyoung’s part — he genuinely enjoys Yugyeom’s cleverness and sweetness toward his friends, toward the plants and trees in the park across the street, toward the lizard in their science classroom. The warmth, it seems, is inherited.

The kid is having absolutely no trouble making friends: he’s usually pretty polite but knows when to skimp on it for a laugh; he shares without having to be asked and rarely gets sulky about it. He and Youngjae love singing along the loudest in Jaebeom’s music classes, and his hyung loves it, no matter how much he pretend-rubs his ears in response to their serenades.

Yugyeom has a talent for foreign languages even though he’s a little clumsy with pronunciation; Jinyoung was amazed that he could count all the way up to ten in English during the first month of school. 

Jackson practically beams about that. He says he’s from Hong Kong so he’s been trying to pepper Yugyeom with little bits of English and Cantonese at home, knowing that learning it at the same time as his native Korean will help it stick. “We read the same Canto books my parents read to me as a baby.”

Jinyoung can’t stop his wide smile at that. “That’s so sweet.” Jinyoung remembers distinctly how much his parents reading to him as a child made his love for books blossom early and proud. No matter how their relationship panned out, that stayed. “You’ve set him up incredibly well.”

Jackson beams, sitting up straight despite the weariness evident in his shoulders. “I’m trying. Every day,” he says, jaw set and determined, eyes unwavering from Jinyoung’s.

The intensity is...kind of a lot for Jinyoung to handle, feeling his ears grow hot. He coughs, shifting his glance back down to his desk, and what’s there makes him groan internally. Yugyeom’s demerit sheet sits in stark black and white, detailing the art class incident. Yugyeom already took a copy of this home with him, but Jeon seonsaengnim had _insisted_ that he bring it up. “Jackson-ssi, I’m sure you’re aware of Yugyeom’s misadventure with his friends in art class.”

“Yeah.” The somber tone it carries is striking compared to the light, happy conversation they were just having. “He was feeling pretty guilty about it when he told me what happened. He knows better than to be wasteful with things that aren’t his.”

Jinyoung hums in assent, frowning. The fatherhood that Jinyoung couldn’t immediately see in Jackson’s youthful face is clear as day now, sitting heavy in his furrowed brow. “He has been having trouble with staying still even though he’s getting older,” Jackson murmurs, more to himself than Jinyoung. “I’m thinking about getting him enrolled in some dance classes after school so he can burn off the excess energy.”

“I think that the dance classes are a good idea, because I think he would like them,” Jinyoung nods, keeping his voice low to match Jackson’s. He glances over Jackson’s shoulder just to make sure that Yugyeom’s happy, wiggling form is still occupied with his coloring. “But not because he can’t sit still. He’s only just five. It’s okay if he’s eager to move around a little; most of the other kids are just as bad or worse.”

Jackson looks a little confused. Heaving a sigh, Jinyoung pushes the demerit sheet across the table for him to look at. “I was instructed to show you the report of it again, just in case Yugyeom didn’t.” 

He watches as Jackson frowns and rubs again at the stubble on his chin, and something about the exhaustion of it tugs deep in his chest. “Honestly…” Jinyoung starts without thinking. He bites his tongue for a half-second, and then says what he wanted to anyway. “Honestly, I don’t think it’s a big deal at all. I never did. No one got hurt, and the kids all learned their lessons, and….” Jinyoung bites down on his bottom lip to stop his final thought.

“And?” the man across the desk prompts, corners of his mouth lifting.

The view makes Jinyoung’s heart lurch recklessly. He follows it. “And honestly, I just think the art teacher is kind of a bitch.”

Jackson’s eyes go wide in shock before he throws his head back and laughs again. It’s still a surprise to Jinyoung exactly how cute it sounds despite having heard it earlier, and even though he’s a little embarrassed about his frankness he laughs too, snorting and covering his mouth to muffle it. 

“What’s so funny!” Yugyeom trills, tripping over himself to get up and come back to his dad. He has his new drawing fisted in his hand but it’s definitely an afterthought when he clings onto Jackson’s thigh where he’s sitting. “Did Daddy make a joke?”

“No, Park seonsaengnim did, baby,” Jackson says, grinning across the desk as he runs a hand down the back of his son’s head. “He’s very funny, did you know?”

“Yeah! He’s so funny!” Yugyeom smiles up at Jinyoung demonstratively. “He’s extra funny when he does girl group dances with me and Bambam.”

Jinyoung can’t even attempt to stop the flush rushing to his cheeks. “Thank you, Yugyeom! That’s en— ”

“He really likes Mamamoo and Red Velvet like me! I hear him singing it all quiet when he’s working on stuff.”

“You both have great taste,” Jackson intones, nodding gravely down at his son. When he looks back up he shoots a sweet, charmed smile at Jinyoung that only serves to make the back of his neck warm, too. 

Jinyoung checks his watch just to have the smallest semblance of distraction; it’s already five minutes past the hour, which means it’s probably time to wrap things up. Thank God. He doesn’t know how much more he can blush before his face just stays like that permanently.

The father and son gather their things and prepare to leave, but not before offering sincerely to help clean up the art supplies and straighten things up. Jinyoung is touched but waves it off; he’ll do it after they leave. He walks them to the front door of the school where the security guard is trying valiantly not to fall asleep at his desk.

Yugyeom hugs around the side of Jinyoung’s thigh as a parting gesture. “See you tomorrow seonsaengnim!” Jinyoung crouches to hug him back warmly, checking his coat is zipped up all the way out of habit.

“It was very nice to meet you, Jackson-ssi,” Jinyoung says when he stands back up, shaking his hand again when it’s offered. His shirt has shifted a little and reveals just slightly more of his tattoo, a more concrete coiled shape, like a snake. It’s familiar in a way that Jinyoung can’t shake. “Although I really feel like I know you from somewhere already.”

Jackson grins at him. “I get that a lot.” He squeezes Jinyoung’s hand again, warm pressure he can feel in his bones. “Maybe I just have one of those faces.”

He might be right. Jinyoung doesn’t think he could forget a face like that.

-

The rest of the school week passes by in a blur. The kids know that the holidays are coming up. To distract them a little, Jinyoung plans a science experiment making sugar crystals that look like icicles, and he occupies them with learning how to cut folded up snowflakes that they hang around the room. He has nary a spare second to think about anything besides making sure they all have their coats and gloves and scarves on before going outside for recess.

But when he does, in the hours that they’re gone for arts and music, or when they’re having quiet time, Jinyoung finds himself thinking about Jackson.

This is the first time he’s ever — ugh, it feels lame to even think it — _crushed_ on the parent of one of his students. But Jackson had just made it so easy to do so. He was boyishly handsome but had mischief in his smile. He was entirely, overwhelmingly in love with his smart, sweet son. He was fluent in three languages, which is just hot.

Given that all of the excitement in Jinyoung’s life only adds up to a monthly camboy subscription charge, a worn-out pair of running shoes, and a full bookshelf, it’s only fair for him to harbor a teeny, tiny handful of thoughts about a hot dad. At least, that’s what he tells himself. He has to have some excuse for the frequency of his daydreams about walking with him hand-in-hand along the Han River.

By the time that Saturday rolls around, Jinyoung knows he should snap out of it.

He’s never been the kind to walk around with his head in the clouds like this. His parents raised him very firmly, frustratingly rooted in reality. He barely knows the guy; doesn’t know anything about him outside of the thirty-seven minutes they spent talking, which was mostly about his son anyway, as it should have been. The possibility of anything happening between Jinyoung and Jackson is so astronomically low that he might as well give up thinking about him completely.

That turns out being easier said than done. Especially when Jinyoung avoids a night out with Jaebeom and his new fling and goes to watch KingPuppy’s stream instead, still clad in his morning pajamas with an overly full glass of pinot noir.

Today he’s wearing one of Jinyoung’s favorite outfits: the black and white one, with a wide black strip of tulle over his eyes and nose and a thin leather choker around his throat, white button down shirt draped over his shoulders. He’s rubbing over the bulge in his briefs when the stream starts, color in his cheeks, same lazy smile as always. The thing that’s different is that he’s using his left hand. Jinyoung can see his right arm behind him flexing to hold him up. 

“I don’t know about you guys,” he says, already breathless, shoving his hand down his underwear impatiently, “but I had a long week. I needed this.” That made two of them.

Jinyoung puts down his glass of wine on the bedside table and follows along, barely bothering to push his boxers down past his cock. He huffs when he gets his hand around himself, and on-screen KingPuppy makes a similar sound, throwing his head back. “Whichever one of you assholes dared me to do this whole stream with my left hand...I really hate you right now.” Jinyoung watches his right arm rummage around behind him, his chest flexing underneath the shirt, moving the dragon tattoo on his right pec. 

The dragon writhes and Jinyoung frowns.

His weird feeling of déjà-vu dissipates as soon as it appeared, pushed aside by the camboy showing off what he was looking for: a mid-size matte black dildo, one that looks relatively close to human anatomy rather than his usual preference for massive Bad Dragon monstrosities. 

Someone else in the chat voices it before Jinyoung gets the chance to: _oh, you’re going to fuck yourself with something that looks like a regular dude’s dick for once._ KingPuppy reads it out and says, cheerfully, “Maybe a regular dude’s dick is enough for once,” and laughs.

Jinyoung’s hand stills on his cock, blood turning to ice from his fingers all the way down his body. 

That laugh — he knows that laugh. He has heard that laugh in his real, actual life, separate from this; it’s now so distinctive he can’t believe he didn’t notice it before. The only problem is, without the source right in his ear, brain clogged up by a glass or two of wine, he can’t figure out exactly who it is. In the midst of his panic he feels like the possibilities are literally endless. Shownu-hyung? Jaebeom? It could be any of the friends or co-teachers or people in his close-knit neighborhood, anyone from the checkout guy at the grocery to the bookseller at the used bookstore around the corner from his house.

He watches, frozen, as the stream continues in blissful ignorance. The camboy pants something about not being able to do both ends with one hand, and pleads to be able to touch himself with his right.

When he can — when they allow him to — he reaches to his front with his right and back behind him to play with himself with his left. 

Jinyoung starts so hard in surprise that his mattress jostles the bedside table. He watches his wine glass fall off the edge and shatter explosively against the wood floor like it’s happening in slow-motion.

On KingPuppy’s right wrist lays an unfairly innocuous red string bracelet. 

Jinyoung is so fucked.


	2. Chapter 2

Jinyoung stares, bleary-eyed and nauseated, at the two nearly identical premade beef stock choices in front of him on the grocery store shelf. 

Jaebeom had all but kicked him out of his apartment this morning to search for extra ingredients for hangover soup, but now Jinyoung can’t remember exactly which brand his hyung likes using for this sort of thing. Last night, Jaebeom told him this was going to happen and Jinyoung didn’t care, in the midst of his drunkenness. 

(Last night, when Jinyoung found out that his student’s dad was a camboy that he had happened to watch for years; last night, when he promptly started panicking immediately after this realization and nearly stepped on a shard of broken glass reaching for his phone to call Jaebeom.

It rings out four times before he picks up. “What?” he answered, irritable. There were some sounds in the background on Jaebeom’s end, a little bit of shuffling and murmuring and a soft chuckle. “What is it?”

“I —” Jinyoung didn’t even know where to start. “Hyung, I need to tell you something but promise you won’t laugh at me first.”

“I will do no such thing,” Jaebeom said. It sounded like he was moving around now too, voice echoing through the bigger spaces in his apartment. “What if it’s really funny?”

“It’s not,” Jinyoung moaned, swallowed once again by embarrassment and shame, covering his face even though no one was there to see it. “It’s really not. Can I come over?”

Jaebeom sighed and agreed. “Remember you owe me one,” he said darkly.

When Jinyoung showed up at his apartment with two paper sacks full of beer and soju Jaebeom took the bags and let the door shut on him. “Hyung!”

“The payment is fulfilled. You can leave now!”

“Let me in!” Not like he didn’t know Jaebeom’s door code, but it was the principle of the thing.

Jaebeom looked like he had been mauled by a tiger when Jinyoung finally got inside, standing at his kitchen counter, pouring himself a shot of soju wearing an oversized shirt and pink and red and purple marks all down his throat. His hair was sticking up at odd angles. “Ah, did I interrupt something?”

“Yes,” Jaebeom said, downing the shot. “It’s Saturday night, Jinyoungie, what did you expect?”

Jinyoung rubbed the back of his neck, sheepish. “I didn’t really think about it. Sorry, hyung.” 

He watched as Jaebeom muffled another long-suffering sigh. “Fine.” Jaebeom cracked open a beer can and slid it over the counter to Jinyoung, then crossed his arms over his chest, narrowing his eyes at his best friend. “Out with it, then. What’s so important that you have to come over here so late with so much alcohol?”

Jinyoung took a deep breath and a long chug. He started from the beginning. 

By the end, Jaebeom was clutching his stomach and the kitchen countertop, bent over and rubbing tears out of his eyes from laughing too hard. 

“It’s not funny!” Jinyoung insisted, wiping the foam off of his lip from the third can of beer. “Jaebeom, it’s not funny!” His insistence only served to make Jaebeom laugh harder, loud barks that would be sure to wake the neighbors.)

Waking up this morning was a trial, but not nearly as fierce of a struggle as wiping the drool off of his chin and peeling himself off of the couch to get here. Everything hurts. His whole body feels like it went through a meat grinder. He pokes gently under his eyes beneath his glasses. Yep, swollen as shit — maybe Jaebeom will take pity on him and let him do a mask while the stew cooks. More likely, Jaebeom will just throw a cucumber at him and tell him to fuck off with it.

His headache is being exacerbated by every miniscule movement and sound, including the quiet overhead music and the tinkle of the bell attached to the front door. 

He frets for another half a second before just going with his gut and choosing the one on the left. There’s a rattle of a sticky shopping cart wheel heading his way and doesn’t want to be caught staring mournfully at soup stock. Jinyoung shuffles toward the end of the aisle but gets caught up by the sound of some quiet but spirited arguing between a man and a woman, and he decides to turn around rather than have to face the discomfort of walking past or through bickering strangers.

This is a continuation of the many, many mistakes Jinyoung seems to have made recently.

A familiar voice approaches. “You can’t eat only chicken fingers and tater tots for the rest of your life, Yugyeom.”

The squeaky wheel shrieks, as do the alarm bells in Jinyoung’s head, heart leaping into his throat in terror. “Shit, shit shit,” he whispers. “Fuck!” He turns around, trying to walk calmly the other direction, lovers’ tiff be damned.

Of course it’s not that easy. Yugyeom must have an eagle eye because from the other end of the aisle as they turn around it, he squeals in delight and yells at the top of his lungs: “PARK SEONSAENGNIM!”

Dread fills every blood vessel in Jinyoung’s body. There’s no use in acting like he didn’t hear that; the decibel was so loud that dogs in the park down the street probably heard it. Jackson scolds him in quiet Cantonese as Jinyoung turns around slowly. “Good morning, Yugyeom, Jackson-ssi. How are you?” 

“We’re doing well! Just getting some things for the week.” Jackson grins at him, bright and easy. Seeing it feels like a twisting knife of stupidity: how could he possibly not remember how familiar that smile was? How couldn’t he recognize it? He has quite literally spent years watching that mouth and seeing it do the most intimate things.

As if the sweet smile wasn’t bad enough, Jackson’s dressed down in a muscle shirt and a pair of black skinny jeans that look like they were painted on. Jinyoung’s life is a cosmic joke. He needs to remember to forget that he knows what Jackson looks like completely naked. “I didn’t know you lived in the neighborhood.”

“I don’t, actually,” Jinyoung admits, suddenly sheepish under the gazes of the two Wangs. “I was — I hung out with my hyung last night, he lives around the corner.”

“Did you have fun?” Yugyeom asks, kicking his legs where they hang from the cart. He’s bundled up in a buttercup yellow puffer coat. His little sneakers match. Jackson wraps a big hand around both of his feet to avoid getting struck as he flings them around in unrest.

“I did, thank you.”

“A little too much fun?” Jackson says, wiggling an eyebrow jokingly. It must show in Jinyoung’s face just how goddamn hungover he is. It’s that or the stubble, stained sweatpants and slides outfit that must have tipped him off. 

Jackson doesn’t look like he’s judging, though. He looks indulgent, like they’re sharing a little secret between the two of them in front of his kid. It’s an entirely innocent and nice conversation with only the tiniest hint of flirtation, but Jinyoung can’t stop his brain from laying the version of Jackson he was, ahem, already familiar with over the version standing in front of him. _“We’re gonna have fun,”_ his voice echoes in Jinyoung’s head, unbidden.

“Yeah,” Jinyoung mumbles, throat scratchy. “Probably so.”

“Grocery shopping isn’t fun,” Yugyeom says, pouting up at his dad like he’s trying to make a point. He moves his feet again like he’s gonna kick right through the hand that’s got him restrained and Jackson huffs, half-amused and half-annoyed.

“Yugyeom,” he says, tone bristly, “we know that sometimes we have to do things we don’t like doing, remember? Like going grocery shopping and eating vegetables.”

The little boy’s frown deepens, looking like he’s hurtling toward a tantrum. Jackson turns to Jinyoung, seemingly unaffected and asks him whether or not he likes grocery shopping.

“Ah.” Jinyoung really doesn’t want to get dragged into this. “I don’t, really. I’m not very good at cooking.” He sees a tiny flash of rebellion in Yugyeom’s eyes and quickly changes course. “But even so I have to make sure I’m eating well and taking care of myself. Gyeommie, do you and your dad eat well?”

Jackson raises an expectant eyebrow at his son. Yugyeom heaves a big, dramatic sigh and nods. “Daddy likes eating organs.”

Jackson sputters. _“Organic,”_ he says, chuckling, eyes flickering between his kid and Jinyoung as he goes a little pink in the cheeks, “organic food, not organs.”

“He makes me eat broccoli so much,” Yugyeom whines. He shoots his dad a dark look from the basket. “But it does taste good. Sometimes. I guess.”

The ache lodged in Jinyoung’s temple throbs. He doesn’t know how much longer he can do this; pretending that everything is normal and cool on a Sunday afternoon talking to his student and his camboy dad. 

“Please Jinyoung-ssi, would you consider talking to your class about healthy eating habits?” The entreaty echoes in his skull; _“please, please, please,”_ he had begged, seconds from coming just from being fucked. The same guy that’s staring up at him, standing next to his kid, bright-eyed and hopeful, trusting, just like a pu—

“I’ll think about it!” Jinyoung nearly shouts, backing down the aisle. He makes a pitiful excuse to leave and bows out, scrambling to pay the grocer. 

He gets all the way into the elevator in Jaebeom’s building before screaming.

-

One of Jinyoung’s best, most productive habits (unlike, say, his habit of leaving clothes near or on top of the laundry basket instead of inside it) is running.

He wouldn’t say he’s particularly good at it: he’s not very fast and his technique could probably use some work, but that’s beside the point. It helps get him off of the couch and out of his apartment to engage with the city. It still has a certain level of solitude involved that gets meditative after a while, just him and his feet hitting the ground and the steady pace of his breathing. After his panting evens out and his pace is set, it’s just him and the sights and sounds of his neighbors, the cabs honking and zooming, the lights in every office building and apartment flicking on earlier and earlier when the winter sun takes her leave prematurely.

On Saturdays, he goes in the afternoon, preferring to soak up what little sunlight he can. There’s a path through Yongsan Park that goes right by the Children’s Museum, and running past it gives him plenty of inspiration for lesson plans. They have learning-art installations outside that change every few months; recently there’s sculptural elements in squiggly greens and round blues and sharp reds. Jinyoung wants to bring the kids over for a lesson on color theory.

The park is crowded during his jog today, people lounging and strolling around with their coats and jackets wrapped around their waists, dogs and kids scampering around in excitement over the unseasonable midday warmth. Plenty of people are down at the edge of the lake having little picnics, and one of the groups is laughing at three young kids chasing a teeny tiny little white dog in circles. Their voices ring out loud over the water, kids shouting, parents chuckling, and it’s giving him an uncanny feeling of familiarity.

He can’t shake his head out of it, eyes glued to the smallest of the three even as he keeps jogging. He looks a little bit like —

Jinyoung’s ripped out of his head by a blurry image out of the corner of his eye. He has to put the brakes on instantly to keep from running headlong into someone.

Only it doesn’t go that smoothly. Instead, Jinyoung tries to stop, scrambling like something out of a cartoon, and trips over his own foot, tackling the person in front of him flat to the ground.

The impact of going down knocks him a little silly, world spinning. Jinyoung shakes his head like it will put his brain back in the right place and the first thing he registers is groaning, both his own and the wheezing of the person beneath him. “Oh my god!” he says into the white t-shirt in front of him. “I’m so sorry!”

He panics, leaning up and profusely apologizing the whole way. “I’m sorry, god, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going I —” All of the blustering stops in a half-second, realizing who exactly it was he knocked over. 

Jackson is covered in dust and grass, and there’s an abandoned bag of melon popsicles next to him where he lays in the dirt, melting in the plastic a vitriolic green like toxic sludge. He looks dazed himself from hitting the ground, but his mouth is slowly curving up into a grin the longer Jinyoung just lies there and gapes at him.

“Fancy seeing you here,” he says, a little breathless, and laughs. He rests his hand, light and reassuring, in the sweaty lower curve of Jinyoung’s spine. “Do you do this to all of your kids’ parents?”

“No,” Jinyoung moans, overwhelmed with self-loathing. “Are you okay? Shit, I’m so fucking sorry.” The dread grows. “Fuck, I didn’t mean to say shit.”

Jackson chuckles again and Jinyoung can feel his body moving with it, the line of him covered from the waist down by Jinyoung’s own hips and legs and. God. His stomach flips over and over at the feeling but he has to peel himself away before he can have the chance to think about it too much.

They’re already attracting attention though, three impish voices coming into focus. “Park seonsaengnim! Park seonsaengim! Why are you lying on Jackson hyung?” Youngjae giggles, while Bambam excitedly yells “can we dogpile?”

Jackson barks a laugh. “Definitely not, little bro. Park seonsaengnim already got me dirty enough.”

Jinyoung chokes and shuffles to his feet. Youngjae’s dad Minho sends him a saucy wink before telling all of the little ones urgently, “if you don’t go stop her, the hungry dinosaur is gonna come eat all of your sandwiches! Look, she’s already looming!” He points over at Bambam’s teenage sister Lisa, who’s circling their picnic basket with her arms bent at the elbows, pretending to roar and scratch her hands like raptor claws.

Luckily they all buy into it, running back to their picnic blanket screaming all the way, Bambam bellowing a long _“noooo”_ as a battle cry.

“Hey,” Jackson says from the ground. He’s looking up at him, squinting in the sunlight, covered in dirt and Jinyoung is so ashamed all over again, burning under his skin. “Give me a hand.”

Jinyoung does; he pulls Jackson to his feet and jumps, startled, when Jackson squeezes his hand briefly in thanks before letting go. There’s a blade of grass hanging off of one of his ears. There’s dirt on his knees from getting up. His whole outfit is ruined. “Your shirt...I’m so sorry. I’ll pay for your laundry bills for a month after this.”

A warm hand descends on his shoulder. “Jinyoung-ssi, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it! It’s not like I’m high fashion today...these joggers are so old I’m wearing holes in the thighs.”

Jinyoung gulps and does not look at said thighs.

“Besides,” breezes Jackson, stuffing his hands in his pockets, the picture of nonchalance. “You tackled me, I felt you up a little. I think we’re pretty much even.” When Jinyoung looks over at him this grin looks different than all the others have, still wide and kind but hesitant. Almost nervous. His face is a little pink.

Jinyoung can’t stop his tiny returning smile, or the flush he can feel in his own cheeks, or his stomach doing somersaults like it has been the entire time he’s been looking at Jackson glowing in the sunlight.

“Can I — do you want to have lunch with us?” Jackson blurts. “I’m sure we packed more than enough peanut butter and jellies.”

 _Yes, yes, yesyesyes_ thumps the traitorous little muscle in his chest. “I —” _would love to_ he wants to say, he barely doesn’t say, his mouth clamping shut tight around the words before they can come out. He wants to stay; almost every little molecule in him wants to spend the nice day outside, basking in the glow of the sun and his students’ laughter and Jackson Wang.

But knowing what he knows makes every moment Jinyoung spends near him feel riddled and woven through with guilt and shame. If Jackson even knew what kind of person he was, would he want him to stick around? Would he want to smile and flirt and touch? Would he really look at him with so much light in his eyes if he knew that Jinyoung was a pervert? “I would, but I have to go.”

It’s impossible to miss exactly how much Jackson’s face falls. “Oh. Well, okay.” His expression morphs, tightens around the eyes even though he keeps a stale smile on. “I’m sorry if I was being...untoward.”

And god, that just makes it so much worse. “No, no! Nothing’s — nothing’s wrong with you, you’re perfect, I just…” Jinyoung babbles, ears going hot when he realizes what he’s said. “I just. I really have to go. Enjoy the rest of your afternoon, Jackson-ssi.” He dips his head in a little bow and pretends he doesn’t hear Jackson’s confused, amused little huff as he jogs back the way he came.

-

After the day in the park, Jinyoung spends a lot more quality time with the most important thing in his life.

His bookshelf.

For as long as he can remember books have been his escape from the cruelties of reality. They dull the sharp edges of every little rejection; they make it easier for him to externalize and process the way that life and the people in it can pick you up and throw you away without warning.

Books have given him insight to how other people think, and how he thinks himself, and they taught him that his job — the career path that he’s chosen for himself — is absolutely, indisputably essential. Teaching his kids to love learning, to appreciate the way you can absorb and be absorbed by everything that a story, a novel, an essay can teach you has more meaning than he could possibly convey to his family and everyone else who doubted him along the way.

He throws himself into classics first. True classics — the Odyssey, to start. It feels a little grueling to start, like it always has, but Jinyoung trusts his brain enough to dig in and get lost in it.

It doesn’t work. Charybdis looms with her gaping maw, Scylla threatening to consume, and Jinyoung still, still sees Jackson’s disappointment clear as day every time he blinks. 

He tries another. Drowns in Moby Dick, searching for the White Whale. _“There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.”_ Jinyoung slams it closed, scowling and returning it to the slot it came from.

Clearly escapism is...escaping him. Jinyoung gnaws at his fingernails, standing listless in front of the bookcase. He’s never had this problem before. 

So much of his life has been about keeping every sliver of emotion tidy, easy to shut in and put away once he’s done with it, once it becomes inconvenient. When it starts to hurt. The characteristic emotional detachment his parents had shown him at a young age only served to help him get over their disapproval of his sexuality, his goals in life, his dream of caring and loving and teaching; he packed all of the ache and fury up with his bags and moved to Seoul and hadn’t thought to regret it a single day since.

Every little fling he had in college, every rare night spent in an acquaintance’s bed in the time between then and now had come and gone without much fanfare. Jinyoung hadn’t found it within himself to linger on the pain of losing a romantic partner any longer than he had to; he had too much to occupy his time and his heart already, interning and shadowing as an undergrad and then co-teaching with Shownu for two years before being entrusted to handle 30 rambunctious five-year-olds at once. Jinyoung had love in abundance, here.

Maybe he had let himself believe that was all he needed for too long. Now that something can’t fit neatly in one of his boxes, something so multitudinous, Jinyoung doesn’t know what or how to feel. How he’s supposed to feel.

He knows he’s not supposed to feel anything. Jackson is his student’s father. He’s a guardian of someone Jinyoung looks after, end of. He’s a sex worker that Jinyoung paid to get off in front of a camera. That’s all.

But it’s not that easy. Every time Jinyoung tries to put his thoughts of Jackson into a box it doesn’t fit; when he jams one end of it inside, the other side inevitably comes slipping out. When he’s not thinking about all the times he’s seen him tease and moan, all of that securely locked away, the vision of him petting Yugyeom’s long sandy hair out of his face in his classroom comes around. When Jinyoung isn’t thinking of Jackson bickering with his son in the grocery store, he’s sucked in by all the thoughts he’d had about KingPuppy, how he would feel underneath and on top of and all around Jinyoung, whether he would shiver in Jinyoung’s hands. 

The fact that they keep running into each other doesn’t help. Every time Jinyoung convinces himself he should stop thinking about Jackson, every time he chastises himself for thinking about a man he has barely spoken to and knows very little about, another opportunity comes along for Jinyoung to see him and embarrass himself.

Jackson never seems displeased. In fact, Jackson always looks brightly up at him when they encounter each other. He always smiles, always looks at him like he’s a welcome addition even when he’s knocking the daylights out of him. 

If circumstances were any different, Jinyoung would take the looks for what they were — he would be flattered, he would flirt back, he would wait patiently to see if Jackson would want to go out with him after Yugyeom moved classes. But Jinyoung bears the burden of already being too intimate, too familiar with a side of Jackson he should never have seen. He’s bearing a secret that he is terrified to let loose from his clutches.

He can hear Jaebeom’s exasperated sighing ringing in his ear like he’s right in the room. “How were you supposed to know?” he had asked. “What could you have done?”

It doesn’t stop the rotten feeling in his gut when he thinks about it.

-

“I can’t believe I let myself get roped into this,” Jinyoung huffs, watching the steam of his breath rise in the absolutely frigid night air.

Jaebeom gives him a withering side-eye over his scarf. “Did you have something better to do?” He nudges Jinyoung with his elbow and breaks into a grin. He’s been overflowing with excitement all week about getting Jinyoung to come out and meet his boyfriend after weeks of self-imposed solitude. He even brought bottles of Jinyoung’s favorite peach flavored soju with him for them to furtively chug on their train ride downtown. “Come on, let me have this. My dongsaeng is finally leaving his lonely cavern and gracing me with his presence.”

“I’m not a caveman,” Jinyoung sniffs delicately. The long walk to the restaurant from the subway station is turning the tip of his nose red, but luckily the place is just down this block. There’s someone standing outside despite the chill and without noticing Jaebeom starts walking a little bit faster. “I just don’t want to be a third wheel.”

“You won’t be! I told you his friend is coming too, remember?” 

Jinyoung groans. As if that is any better; meeting two new people in one night sounds almost worse. It’s like a double date, a platonic double date where the boyfriends will flirt and Jinyoung will make awkward small talk with someone who he’s probably not going to like and definitely not even going to have sex with afterwards. But Jaebeom isn’t listening to him anymore — instead, he’s sending a wide, goofy wave down the sidewalk and grinning ear to ear. “Mark hyung!”

The delicate-looking man outside of the barbeque looks up from his phone, thumbs flying furiously even when his eyes are away from the screen. “Hi, Bummie.” He smiles wide and his teeth are pretty and sharp as knives even from this distance. He waves his phone around demonstratively. “I came out here to wait for my idiot best friend but he just told me he’s running late.”

“You’re saying you’re not a welcoming party for me?” Jaebeom teases in a low voice, and Jinyoung can feel his face contorting in disgust. 

Mark rolls his eyes and shakes his head when he catches Jinyoung’s eye like _can you believe this guy_. He snorts as Jaebeom approaches, and then when he’s within arm’s reach — “Hey! Ow, hyung!” — the small man jumps up and wraps his arm around Jaebeom’s neck, dragging him into a headlock, pulling Jaebeom into his elbow to mess with his hair with the other hand.

It’s the funniest thing Jinyoung has ever seen. He points and laughs immediately, guffaws growing louder and echoing down the block as Mark cackles and Jaebeom whines.

They go inside rather than waiting any longer in the cold night, Jaebeom grumbling when he’s released despite his half-smile and pink cheeks. Mark walks beside Jinyoung when they’re taken to a table, introducing himself in just-slightly-accented Korean and grinning up at him like he’s already fond. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Oh, god,” Jinyoung says dryly. “That cannot be a good thing.”

Mark’s smile grows wider but he stays mum on exactly what he means. Jaebeom whinges behind them about feeling left out and picks at the back of Mark’s jacket with needy hands, and without even looking Mark catches one and laces their fingers. 

It’s cute, Jinyoung thinks, lips quirking. Jaebeom rarely feels comfortable enough with his flings or people he dates to roll over and show his soft underbelly, to be cuddly and demanding. It’s a nice change. 

Plus, it’ll give Jinyoung plenty of ammo to make fun of him with later.

“I can’t believe Jinyoungie came out for once,” Jaebeom says as he and Mark settle across the table, grill heating up between them. He beams at Jinyoung. “I think this calls for a celebration, don’t you?”

Jinyoung absolutely does not agree, but Mark laughs and goes along with him, ordering an extravagant amount of alcohol and food. They chat lazily around the grill as the meat cooks, taking shots and complaining about their jobs a little. 

Mark manages an accounting firm, which is the furthest thing from Jinyoung’s expectation based on his sporty, slightly grungy look and the way he laughs, high and delighted, childlike. “I’m much more boring than I seem,” he insists, smirking, and Jaebeom agrees with him just to get a sharp elbow to the ribs.

“That’s okay,” says Jinyoung. “If you ask Jaebeom I’m boring, too.”

“Not just me; anyone would say that.” 

Jinyoung pretends to throw his chopstick across the table.

By the time the pork is done they ravage it, all full up on alcohol and suddenly starving. They barely remember to leave any for Mark’s friend, but there’s enough for a helping and then some. Jinyoung has to keep poking Jaebeom’s hand away from the grill nevertheless.

Eating lures Jinyoung into a false sense of security, sated and relaxed. That’s when Mark’s phone buzzes loudly, and when he goes to check on it his smile looks wicked. “Jack says he’ll be here any second.”

“Jack?” Jinyoung repeats faintly. Before Jinyoung’s beer-addled brain even gets a second to freeze up over the name, someone is looming over him from behind and picking up his two-thirds full glass of beer. 

“What’s up, sluts?” Jackson says nonchalantly, taking a sip of Jinyoung’s beer before even sparing him a glance. 

When he does look down, Jinyoung’s raised eyebrow gives him the shock of his life. He chokes, sputters, coughs and the drink splashes back all over his face. Jinyoung swears he sees some of the beer come shooting out of his nose.

Jinyoung doesn’t want to outright laugh at him just yet. Jaebeom and Mark on the other hand are pounding on the table and screaming with laughter. “Are you okay?” Jinyoung manages, giggling behind his hand and handing him a napkin. 

“I’m fine,” Jackson gasps, clapping a hand against his chest, still coughing and wiping his face off with the cloth. He looks down at Jinyoung and smiles sheepishly, face red and eyes watering. “Jinyoung-ssi, I am so sorry. I definitely thought you were someone else.” 

Jinyoung logically knows he should be mortified to see him given their last meeting, but floating on a full stomach of soju and pork and beer it’s hard for him to remember exactly why. “You treat all of your friends like that?”

“You’ve met them,” Jackson says, smiling familiar and rueful. He tilts his head at their companions who are just now recovering from howling like hyenas, wiping tears of mirth from their eyes. “Do you think they deserve any different?”

Jinyoung surveys Jaebeom and Mark still tittering across the table. He has a point.

Jackson is insanely apologetic about drinking and then spitting into his drink, understandably, and probably also about incidentally calling his kid’s teacher a slut. He orders him another before even sitting down and insists that Jinyoung put all of his drinks on Jackson’s tab, that he’ll buy them for the rest of the night.

“Really?” Jinyoung is tipsy and his face is warm from the heat of the grill in front of them. The cozy restaurant and the presence of their friends makes Jinyoung’s heart feel swollen and ripe, too safe to sit still, daring. “Order me something more complicated and expensive, then.”

The gamble pays off — Jackson gapes back, mouth turning up at the corners. “I can’t believe you’re taking advantage of me like this, Jinyoung-ssi.”

Jinyoung groans. “Please stop calling me that.” He claps his hand over where Jackson’s rests on top of his silverware. His skin is hot. “You can only buy me drinks if we’re friends, Jackson-ssi.”

“Then what should I call you?” Jackson asks, propping his chin on his hand, big brown eyes giving Jinyoung a good once-over that makes him shiver. 

Jinyoung grips his chopsticks hard in his hand, teetering toward something, looking away first so he can grab a stray piece of pork off of the grill. He squeezes Jackson’s hand underneath his before letting go, stomach leaping anxiously, and bites on the inside of his lip to hide his smile. “Call me whatever you want, hyung.” 

He doesn’t miss Jackson’s sharp inhale.

Jaebeom coughs awkwardly, shattering the moment as he pushes the leftover meat around on the grill. “Jackson, do you want some food?” 

Jinyoung narrows his eyes across the table at the familiar tone. “I hadn’t realized you two knew each other,” he says with a dull, bitchy edge. Jaebeom already looks pretty guilty as Jinyoung glares at him, but he just shrugs with wide eyes, as if to say _how was I supposed to know this Jackson was the same Jackson?_

Jinyoung shakes his head, annoyed. Like there’s two whole Jackson Wangs in Seoul. Unlikely.

Mark glances between the two of them. “Okay telepaths, that’s enough. Shots?”

Jackson cheers.

It’s an entirely different experience than Jinyoung could ever have expected, seeing Jackson outside of school and without his son. Yugyeom’s clearly never far from his mind — he chats to Jinyoung about the readings he’s been bringing to Jackson on his own, the things he’s interested in lately, how he’s spending time with his aunt Jessi tonight instead of his aunt Tammi because they take turns — but Jackson’s not anxious over it. He doesn’t have the skittishness of a new parent. He spends equally as much time teasing Jaebeom over his hair getting long in the back and joking about Mark being a domineering and uncompromising boss.

“I like being in charge.” Mark shrugs, smirks, and looks over at Jaebeom, who promptly goes red all the way down his neck.

Jackson gags theatrically. “Ew.” He turns to Jinyoung, and their knees touch under the table. “Sometimes Mark is like this, but is Jaebeom hyung always like this? Or are they just being gross for our benefit?”

Jinyoung finds himself leaning into Jackson’s space like they’re sharing a secret. Jackson’s smile grows, goes mischievous, and now that he’s closer Jinyoung can see that the heat of the grill and the alcohol is making his cheeks pink and glowy. “He’s never like this. I think maybe they’re bringing out the worst in each other.”

“I can only hope,” Mark jokes, voice dry. It’s delightfully condescending; Jinyoung can’t help the giggle that bubbles up out of him. His head and heart feel light and happy, woozy almost. He doesn’t realize he’s listing a little to one side until he notices Jackson’s hand closing gently around his elbow, settling him and then letting go to slide around the back of his chair.

“Thank you, Jackson-ah,” Jinyoung chimes, quiet in the relative din around them, clinking and clattering and chatter from the other tables, from Mark and Jaebeom sipping their drinks and joking around. Jackson nudges him with his shoulder playfully, looking away with a little half-smile that squeezes in Jinyoung’s chest.

After another four or five rounds — Jinyoung isn’t keeping track anymore — Mark asks for the bill and lays down his own black card, to the group’s enormous glee. They all chime the most obnoxious “thank you hyuuuuung” possible, Jaebeom laying a wet kiss on his cheek that makes his ears pink. 

Jackson and Jaebeom bicker about where to go next (“we _have_ to go to karaoke hyung, c’mon, it’ll be fun!”) while Jinyoung clumsily pulls his coat back on. Mark comes around the table to help him out, straightening his scarf with pretty hands and tucking the ends into his peacoat to keep all the warmth inside. Touched, Jinyoung grabs for him and slaps his hand right against his own cheek. “Hyung. It’s so good to meet you. I’m sorry I’m so sloppy tonight.”

Mark giggles, high and bright like his best friend. He strokes Jinyoung’s cheekbone, doting and familiar for someone he just met. “You’re doing great. And I really have heard way too much about you to think badly about you like this.” He grabs Jinyoung’s hand and tows him out of the restaurant into the chilly air, the two of them shivering and following a still-arguing Jackson and Jaebeom down the sidewalk.

“What does that mean?” Jinyoung bemoans whatever sense of respect Mark might have had for him before Jaebeom told him about all the embarrassing shit in his past. Especially his very, very recent past.

“It means…” Mark pauses, looking like he’s choosing his words carefully. “It means they both talk about you often enough for me to get it.”

Jinyoung’s eyes flick to Jaebeom and Jackson, nudging each other across the sidewalk, cracking jokes and laughing loud in the quiet neighborhood. Jackson’s grin is vibrant under every streetlamp, glowing even in the darkness. “He...really?”

Mark squeezes his hand. “He thinks you’re the greatest thing to happen to Yugyeom since Pororo.”

“Really?” Jinyoung repeats, drunk and speechless, heart melting.

“That’s a direct quote.” Jinyoung can’t help but to laugh, squeezing Mark’s hand back. Mark shifts them, tucks their elbows together to share heat. “Pororo’s pretty good but he never shuts up about Park seonsaengnim.”

“He’s a good kid,” Jinyoung says, fond and grinning. “They’re all so good. I love them.”

Mark says something about how he picked the right job, and as silly as it is it makes Jinyoung a little choked up, heart thumping wetly in his chest. “I think so too.”

The rest of the walk passes by in a colorful blur, Mark deftly dodging the two of them around drunk businessmen and couples the closer they get to the main street through Hannam, neon lights on the late-night bars and restaurants swirling together. Jinyoung remembers pestering Mark for juicy, embarrassing details about his sex life with Jaebeom, remembers Mark laughing and calling him cute and whispering in his ear about how Jaebeom likes it when he sticks his fingers in his—

But then they were there, blinded by the LED signs pointing down to a basement noraebang. Jackson and Jaebeom have finally stopped fooling around long enough to stare at the two of them wrapped up in each other. Jinyoung wants to laugh at Jaebeom’s quirked, unamused eyebrow but he’s entirely caught off guard by the way Jackson is staring at him. He drags his eyes up from Jinyoung’s dark wash jeans and over his chest to track the growing flush crawling up his neck.

It makes Jinyoung warm all over. Jackson offers him his hand to help him down the stairs and he takes it, letting himself be led.

They cause as much ruckus as could possibly be caused in a tiny private karaoke room ordering drinks and arguing over who gets to sing what when. Jinyoung and Jackson stick mostly to pop: K-pop girl groups for Jinyoung, who shimmies along more vigorously the more soju he drinks, and American pop for Jackson. Jaebeom keeps oscillating between trot songs and sultry American R&B tracks; Mark only sings along when he’s feeling particularly inspired, spending the rest of his time trying to get away with undressing Jaebeom with his eyes.

Something snaps between them when Jaebeom’s singing the last verse of an Usher song, Mark charging across the room and wrapping his hand around Jaebeom's wrist as the ballad fades. He marches wordlessly out the door, face pink and grip tight on Jaebeom, who only makes a pleased sound before the door slams shut behind him.

“Can’t believe that took so long,” Jackson muses next to him on the couch. “I thought for sure it would be the Frank Ocean that did it.” 

“They’re really….” Jinyoung doesn’t even know how to put it.

“Nasty? Disgusting? Belligerently horny?”

Jinyoung laughs, loud and unabashed, leaning into Jackson as his body goes weak with it. His forehead presses into Jackson’s neck, exposed since he started getting overheated and undid the top few buttons on his navy button up, and Jackson’s laughing too, throat tensing under Jinyoung’s skin. “I was gonna say cute, but those work.”

When he can breathe again Jinyoung grabs for the last unopened soju bottle on the table. “Split it with me, hyung?”

“Sure.” Jackson’s gaze is tipsy but unwavering as he watches Jinyoung struggle with the lid.

“I can’t get it,” whines Jinyoung, pouting in the utmost frustration. “Seunah, can you open this? Pleaaaaase?” Jinyoung’s wrist gets tired as he shakes the green bottle in his new friend’s face, so he lets it drop into Jackson’s lap.

“You lightweight,” Jackson chuckles. “I don’t think you need any more.”

Jinyoung sticks his tongue out at him. “Party pooper.”

“Well, I am a dad.”

Jinyoung snorts. “Not mine.” He barely notices Jackson squirming away from his hand a little, coughing.

“I promise I’ll drink water after if you open it for me,” Jinyoung barters, feeling supremely clever. Maybe he’ll get lucky and Jackson will forget that he said that. Or maybe if he can get it open himself — wrenching his hand around the lid, squeezing tightly even though his palms are probably still sweaty from jumping around and singing into the mic. It’s no use.

“I’ll open it, but…” Jackson’s voice is full of mischief, and when Jinyoung looks up, his grin is too. “You have to give hyungie a kiss first.” He taps his cheek with his pointer finger all the way extended, a slow little beat, _one, two, three._

And really, who is Jinyoung to say no?

He crawls across the bench on his knees, pleather scuffing loudly under his jeans, and presses three kisses to the smooth plane of Jackson’s cheek as he laughs. One probably would have been fine but. Just to be safe. Jackson’s practically radiating heat, and instead of Jinyoung being stifled by it down in a dark noraebang basement he’s basking in it, electrified by it.

The tip of his nose is still pressed against Jackson’s cheekbone.

This is where the line should be drawn. This is where Jinyoung can safely retreat from and go home and call it a night; this is the moment where Jinyoung needs to sit back down and flirt meaninglessly; this is when Jinyoung needs to wrack his brain to remember all the reasons he shouldn’t do more.

None of those reasons come to mind. Instead, a hot streak of idiotic bravery courses through him as he takes it further than he needs to, further than he imagined as he wraps a hand around Jackson’s far shoulder and deposits himself in his lap.

Jackson makes a sound, a small _oof,_ and his hands raise around Jinyoung’s hips, his waist, touching, steadying but not staying anywhere for long. “What’s this?” he asks, looking up at Jinyoung. His pretty dark eyes stay stuck on Jinyoung, unmoving, wide and hopeful, glittering under the spinning strobes and disco balls as they twirl with no soundtrack.

Jinyoung stares back. “You’re warm,” he says lamely. 

Jackson’s hands go still. Squeeze at his hips, thumbs rubbing against his belt loops. His perennial smile only drops for a second, distracted as his eyes dart down to watch Jinyoung lick his lips. 

An encouragement. 

“I —” Jinyoung starts, voice weak. His hand slides up Jackson's shoulder of its own accord, grips close to where his shirt is wide open around his throat. He presses his thumb against Jackson’s skin to ground himself but his pulse is thrumming, pounding right under the surface where Jinyoung touches him. 

Jackson’s eyelashes flutter over his curious, wanting gaze and Jinyoung sways, pulled in by his gravity like he’s always, always been. He thinks he makes a noise — a needy, choked-off sound — but his next thought is wiped completely out of his mind by the fact that he’s leaning forward and Jackson is leaning forward and their noses are bumping and Jinyoung's eyes are sliding closed and and—

Jackson’s mouth is every bit as sweet as it looks, pliant and exploratory. Jinyoung sighs against him, wading neck-deep into the warm current, goosebumps trickling down his skin with every slow press of their closed mouths. Jackson kisses gently against Jinyoung’s bottom lip, lining up tiny little pecks, timid like he’s worried he’ll be told to stop.

He’s hesitating. He’s holding back. Jinyoung knows why, and it’s exactly what he should be doing too; he should be scared shitless considering the secret he’s keeping. But here and now, alone in this cozy little cocoon at a karaoke joint, Jinyoung cannot bring himself to care. 

Heart lurching recklessly, he opens his eyes and wraps his fingers around the nape of Jackson’s neck, through the downy soft hair there and leans into him further, tilts his head back in his hands. He watches as Jackson’s lips gape open and takes the opportunity to dive right in.

Jinyoung dips his tongue into the wet heat of Jackson’s mouth. He tastes like samgyeopsal and soju and when Jinyoung licks against his tongue, the ridges of his palate he gasps, back straightening, hands going tight around Jinyoung’s sides. 

It's immediately clear that Jackson was holding back more than Jinyoung even thought. He laves and sucks at the tip of Jinyoung’s tongue, tips his head to the side and bites down against the swell of Jinyoung’s bottom lip. The scrape of teeth sends a thrill down Jinyoung’s spine and he very nearly whines; the sound that does come out is barely anything but a hint of voice on a sigh.

Jackson groans, an echo that rumbles through him deep like he’s purring in contentment. He wraps his arms around Jinyoung’s waist and pulls him close, hearts thumping hard against each others’ chests. Jackson’s warmth surrounds him, wicked lips and tongue hot against his mouth, skin searing where Jinyoung’s holding the back of his head, the firm line of his body underneath Jinyoung’s burning through several layers of clothes and setting every one of Jinyoung’s nerve endings alight.

Jinyoung shifts, knees aching, and sits down all the way in Jackson’s lap, not thinking about the possible consequences in the slightest. The other man jumps, arms loosening around him so he can press his palms into Jinyoung’s lower back, dragging him closer.

And then — _“fuck,_ Jinyoung,” Jackson moans, breathless. Jinyoung is suddenly inescapably aware of the line of Jackson’s cock pressed insistent into the bottom seam of his pants, his own cock stirring and swelling and trapped behind his fly against Jackson’s flat stomach. 

Jackson’s voice rings in his head, buzzes in his ears over and over distorted and repeated and rehashed from all the ways he’s heard it before, all the times he’s heard the sound of his pleasure. It’s...different. It sounds almost the same, but there’s an edge to it that Jinyoung isn’t used to hearing, an edge that’s unfamiliar and unstudied and real.

He’s not acting. He’s here and real and kissing the life out of Jinyoung and making noises that only he gets to hear.

Jinyoung swivels his hips, grinding down just to hear them again and again. Jackson delivers in a deluge, breathing noisy, hot little half-groans into Jinyoung’s mouth, wet against his neck when he breaks away to pant and kiss his throat sloppy and open-mouthed, writhing underneath Jinyoung and holding him down and jerking his hips up against his ass like he’s — like he’s —

“Ew!”

Jinyoung tears himself away from Jackson, missing his frown, to scowl at Jaebeom and Mark laughing at them from the doorway. The hand that Mark doesn’t have around Jaebeom has a receipt in it with god knows how much alcohol and several hours worth of karaoke charge on it. 

Every piece of Jaebeom’s clothing is somewhat askew and Mark’s blonde locks look like a rat’s nest. “You’re one to talk!” Jackson crows when he notices them.

Mark pats down the sprigs of hair standing straight up on the top of his head. “But we did it in the bathroom where you can lock the door like decent people. Now let’s get the fuck out of here before you horny bastards get us arrested for public indecency.”

Jackson gently squeezes the side of Jinyoung’s thigh and nods up at him when he looks down into his warm gaze. Jinyoung feels all kinds of flustered getting up, face red and neck red and tipsy enough that when his feet hit the ground he goes a little woozy and weak in the knees. But Jackson’s right there with him. A strong and steady hand around his waist again.

Jinyoung wants to curl into him and stay there forever.

Instead, he has to settle on Jackson’s fingers threaded through his the entire walk to the train station, a heat pack in the twilight hours. Mark and Jaebeom linger a ways away while Jackson insists on punching his phone number into Jinyoung’s contact list.

Before they go, Jackson gives him the smallest, shyest kiss on the cheek. “Call me,” he breathes. 

Jinyoung floats home on a cloud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god so,,,,,this happened. they're gross
> 
> let me know what you think!!! hmu here or [on twt](https://twitter.com/sunnyseunie) or [on cc](https://curiouscat.me/sunnyseunie)
> 
> ♥♥♥


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: doesn't post for months on end  
> me: posts this chapter in a tizzy having not one single person look at it first
> 
> enjoy!! more notes at the end~

Jinyoung wakes up in a puddle of his own drool.

Thankfully, it’s in his own bed — legs tangled in the sheets, fancy goose-down pillows all dented and when he blinks, slow and half-asleep, the sun coming in his bedroom window is muted but still spilling past his blackout curtains. He must have forgotten to close them all the way last night.

Last night. A blooming, unfurling warmth seeps through his chest. Jinyoung can’t stop himself from smiling, thinking about last night. Last night, he’d had to press his face against the cool glass of the subway car window because he was so flushed, Jackson’s peck on his cheek still pulsing, raw with feeling like a new tattoo. Last night, when his heart had done acrobatic feats he hadn’t thought were possible anymore, feeling like a lovesick teenager, feeling warm and then hot all over from Jackson's talk and smile and kiss and touch.

He'd stumbled in sloppily, trailing socks and clothes and his wallet across his apartment and forgetting to plug his phone in on his bedside table, apparently; Jinyoung groans and leans over clumsily to charge it.

Jinyoung crawls out of bed for a glass of water and an Advil, cursing his lack of forethought. He clears the hallway of his debris — coat, scarf, gloves and shoes and a stray whiteboard eraser he must have dropped out of his work bag — because he sure as hell won’t want to do it later and if Jaebeom decides to drop in for a visit he will definitely make fun of him.

By the time Jinyoung settles back in bed, planning to sleep the rest of the day away, his phone is slightly more useful than a brick: 5% charged and counting. His stomach flutters a little as he clicks through to his contacts and he can’t blame it on the hangover.

_Jackson ❤_

The heart was Jackson’s own addition. It’s unbearably cute.

Jinyoung’s palms break out into a cold sweat when he clicks on Jackson’s name and opens a text conversation with him. His lungs feel light, filled up with helium, ready to just float him away at any second. 

The text cursor winks up at him in anticipation.

Jinyoung hesitates a little. He rolls his wrists; they always ache when he’s using his phone, like his old soul is showing its distaste for the technology through his joints. He cracks his neck. His whole body is sore from the hangover and it’s making it hard to concentrate on what he actually wants to say to this guy.

A simple _hi_ isn’t gonna cut it. Not for Jinyoung. He’s awkward with people his own age — he knows it, and it’s been a problem in the past that he had terrible luck keeping up with text conversations. He wants to mind map out everything that he could possibly say afterwards, just in case. Just to make sure he can keep it going.

He doesn’t want to mess this up.

A push notification jars him out of his thoughts, pinging loudly. His banking app is notifying him of unusual activity on his account. Even the bank knows he doesn’t go out very often. He tries to swipe it away, but opens up the app instead accidentally, cursing.

There’s the charge for reloading his subway pass, the convenience store ramen and sodas that Jaebeom begged him and Mark to stop for on the way home. Jinyoung spares a second to be thankful for Mark’s generosity in paying for the obscene amount of alcohol that’s still weakly swimming around in his veins.

The next thing below is a monthly auto-charge. 

His subscription to Jackson’s camming channel. The payment came out yesterday.

Jinyoung drops his phone like it’s scalded him. The guilt that Jinyoung had somehow looked the other way from last night slams into him all at once, washing over him in a wave, making his head spin.

He had gone and thrown out every single one of his reservations about doing anything or being anything with Jackson the second he had laid eyes on him last night. How? How could he possibly have lost sight of the fact that Jackson wasn’t just a stranger off of the street? How could he have forgotten all the ways in which he could fuck this up?

Jackson had laughed with him. Talked to him and belted karaoke with him and kissed him and held his hand. Jinyoung’s hand. Jinyoung who knew every piece and particle of what his body looked like, who admired him anonymously for years, who still felt the temptation to watch him unspool himself every Saturday despite knowing that he was the father of a student of his, despite knowing all of the things that actually make him who he is: a strong, tender, caring father and friend, a good man. 

Jinyoung drowns in the feeling of his deceit. 

The text cursor still blinks up at him, taunting. It hits Jinyoung with a fleeting, desperate thought: what if he did it anyway? What if he went with it? Started talking and flirting and wanting more and more. Followed the warming of his heart for the first time in years and let it build, constructed something with someone who seemed just as interested in making something together. 

But it would all be in the midst of a lie. An irreparable crack in the foundation — it would compromise the entire structure.

Jinyoung rubs his forehead, temples pulsing with ache. His throat feels cloyed and thick when he swallows. It wouldn’t have worked out anyway, he thinks. He wouldn’t have been able to date Jackson while Yugyeom was still his student regardless. It wouldn’t have gone anywhere.

He leaves his phone in the puddle of his sheets as he stands from his bed. The curtains are still showing a sliver of the outdoors, the bright, stark winter daylight.

Jinyoung snaps them shut.

-

The next few weeks pass by in relative peace; the days meander by with little excitement the same way they had before he met Jackson. He has a quiet Christmas with his parents in Jinhae and escapes back to the city as soon as he can afterwards, ducking away from their heavy, expectant, disappointed stares to burrow back into his cave. 

Jinyoung steadfastly avoids the contact stored in his phone all the while.

He spends New Years Eve dodging increasingly more persistent texts from Jaebeom to come out or stay in with him and Mark, burrowing into his bed far earlier than midnight. That is unappetizing for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is that at this point Jackson has definitely said something to Mark and Jinyoung is terrified of his judgement. 

He stays late at work nearly every day before and after the break, scratching out lesson plans and ideas at his desk there, working far past the month or so he usually plans ahead for to get all the way to the school year’s end in February. He runs when he’s done with that, later and later into the freezing cold nights, snowflakes peppering him and seeping into his crewneck, prickling his skin with chill.

Jaebeom doesn’t get the opportunity to corner him until the end of the first week in January. He had somehow managed to avoid his hyung by some combination of reassuring texts and short little talks in the hallway between their two classrooms up until now.

Now, he grips Jinyoung’s arm in an iron hand as the rest of the school is emptying of teachers and trainees. Jaebeom had gone utterly stonefaced seeing Jinyoung still sitting at his desk as he was walking toward the door and left him no chance to escape, blocking the doorway. “We’re leaving.”

Jaebeom drags him to their usual sushi spot. The noise and clamor of Friday night that would usually lift his spirits just gives him a headache tonight. Chugging the sake he and Jaebeom are supposed to be sharing probably isn’t helping either.

The ache could also be exacerbated by the look Jaebeom is giving him. “You’re telling me that you decided to ghost the same guy I saw you dry humping at karaoke?”

Jinyoung winces. “Do you have to say it like that?”

“Which part?” Jaebeom snorts. “It’s all true anyway. I don’t understand.” 

Jinyoung sighs heavily and rubs at the back of his neck. “I didn’t ghost him. I never texted him in the first place...it just seemed easier that way. To not get involved. I didn’t know how to untangle everything.” 

“Jeez. That’s kinda…” Jaebeom trails off, his usual teasing tone absent. “That’s kind of a dick move.”

Jinyoung swallows hard, dropping his gaze to the table, staring at Jaebeom’s half-eaten portion of wasabi until it blurs into a formless green shape. “I know.”

Jaebeom makes a worried nose across from him, clucking and reaching out for where his left hand is laying lifelessly next to a mostly-full plate. “I’m sorry. I'm sorry, Jinyoungie.” He squeezes Jinyoung’s fingers and waits for him to squeeze back — accepting the apology — before saying anything else. “I didn’t want to make you feel bad. But I know you better than anyone and this still doesn’t make sense to me.”

“I don’t know what about it is so confusing,” Jinyoung groans, pulling his hand away from Jaebeom to rest his chin in it. “I’m his kid’s teacher and a sponsor for his porn website. I tried to get in his pants. What about that seems okay to you? Everything about it was doomed from the start.”

Jaebeom shakes his head, the same fondly annoyed little tick he’s been doing ever since Jinyoung latched onto him as his hyung in university. “You don’t know that for sure.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Jinyoung. You don’t.” Jaebeom sighs. “You’re my best friend and I love you but...you do this all the time. You talk yourself out of things like this because they’re scary.” He steamrolls over Jinyoung trying to butt in, poking his finger into the soft wood surface between them. “And _before_ you try to say something about the rules against dating parents, you already know those rules only count for parents of current students. In a month and a half those won’t matter anymore.”

“That’s not even it, hyung, and you know it.”

“Then what is?” 

It seems like the most obvious thing in the world to Jinyoung. Having been a sponsor of Jackson’s camming channel, having been his kid’s teacher at the same time, having sat in his lap and tried to make out with him while he didn’t know those things were true, especially concurrently — everything about that was such a massive invasion of privacy that Jinyoung didn’t see any choice but to bow out and walk away. What good would it do trying to explain that to someone he had barely spoken to anyway?

“But you didn’t tell him.”

“No,” Jinyoung sighs, “of course not.”

Jaebeom pinches the bridge of his nose. “So you would rather never speak to him again than, I don’t know, tell him the truth and let him decide for himself how he feels?”

Jinyoung doesn’t know how to answer that.

-

It’s Saturday.

Every Saturday since meeting him Jinyoung has had absolutely no trouble avoiding Jackson’s stream, first from shock and common decency and then from guilt. It hadn’t hung over him at all — he hadn’t once been tempted, too caught up in work and the holidays and also being revolted with himself to even want to, in spite of all his attraction.

But after talking to Jaebeom, Jinyoung feels like a fresh bruise. Aching like he’d just taken a hit; heart squeezing weak and anxious and lonely all day in the stillness of his apartment. Jaebeom had texted him a couple of times since last night, trying valiantly to remind Jinyoung that he’s there for him. He appreciates the cat memes, because they momentarily distract him from a growing urge in his chest to see. 

Just to see. Just to see Jackson, because he misses him. Misses him more than he has any right to.

He ends up working idly on class notes, checking his email, trying to be any kind of productive at his desk to stave off the echoey soreness in his chest. 

There’s one from the cam site Jackson is hosted on offering a discount on coins just this weekend. 

Jinyoung bites his nails and looks at the clock. It’s nearly 10:30.

Heart in his throat, Jinyoung clicks the familiar link.

Jackson looks just as good as always, hair down and fluffy and soft-looking, like he’d just washed it. He’s rubbing at the stubble on his chin under the cheap plastic shiba inu mask covering his face, rattling the tag on the dog collar around his throat when he drops his hand. 

The puppy outfit is an old standby. A deep, bitter rock in his stomach burns, disgusted that he knows it, that he can call it to mind like this, immediate and familiar and _invasive._ Jinyoung can remember every time he’s watched Jackson leash himself up and get off on being called a good puppy; he can remember the first time especially, when he had cautiously waded into the scene only to come fast in his trembling hand when Jackson yanked on the lead and whined.

He rubs his knuckles into his eyes, stomach lurching. Maybe this isn’t a good idea.

On screen, Jackson peels himself out of his white t-shirt, the muscles in his stomach tightening reflexively as it comes off over his head, mask getting jostled. His body is unholy in its shape as always, but Jinyoung doesn’t dare touch himself. 

He doesn’t even want to. That’s not what this is about. 

“You guys are silly,” Jackson muses, giggling after reading a comment, rubbing himself absently over his briefs. “ _Oppa~_ ,” he reads, pitching his voice up playfully. “What is your ideal type?” 

As Jinyoung watches, Jackson’s smile twists, nearly slides off his face completely. Jinyoung aches, wondering if he’s okay, before remembering abruptly that it’s none of his business. 

“That’s a good question.” Jackson tilts his head, considering. “I guess I like, uh. Hah. I really like it when someone smiles with their eyes?” His voice comes out quiet. Almost shy.

Jinyoung’s heart squeezes as Jackson continues. “Yeah, yeah, that doesn’t count, I know... I like people that aren’t afraid to talk back when I tease them.” Jinyoung watches the muscles in his thighs twitch. “That’s cute.”

He’s sliding his hand into his underwear, now, wrist slipping past the Wang tattoo. “I like it when someone kind of has a baby face? Or if they look like a baby sometimes.” Jackson laughs. It rings loud, cacophonous. “I like people who pout.”

Jinyoung inhales sharply.

Onscreen, Jackson strokes himself slowly, like he’s luxuriating in the feeling and the question, like he’s sinking deeper into the idea of someone as if they’re right there in front of him. “Mmm. I like nice arms. And asses.”

Jinyoung twitches so hard his knee thunks against the bottom of his desk, pain blossoming in a hot wave. He curses loud enough to nearly not hear Jackson’s next comment; it comes out of him in a little sigh, his eyes flicking slowly closed and open again in staggered flutters like morse code. “Someone who’s beautiful, but not perfect. Like they have a crooked tooth, or — ” Jackson gasps and Jinyoung _yearns_ as he watches Jackson’s hand squeeze tight around himself. “Or big ears.” 

Jinyoung forgets how to breathe. His hand flies to his laptop and slams it shut, body working entirely off of thoughtless panic. 

He can’t have meant — there’s no way he meant —

But what if he did?

He stands up so fast his desk chair tips backward and crashes to the floor. The sound rings in Jinyoung’s ears as he backs away from his desk, as he turns toward the closet to jam a hoodie and jeans on, as he fumbles with stuffing his wallet and phone and keys into his pockets. 

Pacing in circles in his apartment won’t suffice this time. Jinyoung trips over himself in an effort to get out of his building and take a walk in the bracing, frigid night air, one shoe untied. He pulls his hood up over his head and starts walking without a destination in mind, desperate to do anything but think about what just happened.

The part of the city Jinyoung lives in is relatively quiet at this time of night, schools and family neighborhoods tucked in and restful until Monday morning comes back around. On a decent evening, Jinyoung would walk these same streets and wonder about each light on in an apartment complex, each wilting bouquet tossed in the trashcan on the corner. But tonight is too cold: every breath of wind feels like a thousand tiny pins scraping down Jinyoung’s throat, prickling, stabbing. No matter how deep he digs his fingers into the front pocket of his pullover, they still tingle uncomfortably, half-frozen.

At least it’s more manageable for Jinyoung to focus on than the throbbing, anxious hole in his chest. He can do this part — grumble under his breath about the weather, let its bitter fingers caress his cheeks, listen to his body when it begs him for respite from the chill, pulling him toward the convenience store at the corner.

The ahjumma at the counter sends him a little absentminded nod, thoroughly involved in her gossip magazine. He waves awkwardly with both hands, trying to get some feeling back in his fingertips, and makes his way toward the coffee machine tucked away against the back wall. He rounds the corner with canned food and preserves and screeches to a halt.

Jackson’s right there, staring in solemn contemplation at the organic drink fridge, in those same worn old joggers he was wearing the day that Jinyoung tackled him into the dirt. The ones that are apparently thin in the thighs from overuse. Jinyoung’s brain, high off of adrenaline, wonders wildly what flavor kombucha Jackson prefers when he opens the door before his body remembers — oh shit, we should _leave_ — and starts backing away immediately. 

Jackson must sense someone’s presence, because he looks right at him through the glass fridge door. His eyes flash from recognition to something unreadable, and Jinyoung wants to escape, the stupid compulsion to cry creeping up under his skin. He needs to get out.

But someone up there must really have it out for him. He backs up straight into the shelf with the condiments, knocking a set of precariously perched sesame oil bottles straight onto the ground where they explode in a brown burst.

“Oh, shit.” Jinyoung hears Jackson’s voice like he’s at the other end of a long tunnel. “Hey, Jinyoung-ssi, are you okay?”

“Fine,” he mumbles, stepping cautiously over his mess, stumbling toward the front counter where the ahjumma is trying to peek over the aisles. “Fine, sorry!” He can hear Jackson following him but the embarrassment is too great for him to look back, for Jinyoung to even want that extra glimpse of Jackson he might savor after tonight. 

Jackson apologizes to the woman before Jinyoung can even think it, stopping her as she hobbles out to inspect the damage, explaining that _there was an accident_ and _no please, ma’am, let me get it, I insist_ , and offering to take the broom and dustpan and mop from her hands. He swears to her that he’ll pay her for the damages, and all of it is too much. 

It’s too much. 

“Pardon me, ma’am. I’m the one that knocked everything over,” Jinyoung insists, slumping into a deep, regretful bow. “I am so sorry. Please rest, and I will clean up my mess and pay for everything you are owed.” As he takes the cleaning supplies from the lady, he can feel Jackson’s eyes on the side of his face and wonders, absently, what he’s thinking.

The old woman shrugs. “I’m sure you and your boyfriend can sort it out. I’ll be at the counter.”

Jinyoung’s ears burn as he nods, bowing again apologetically. He resolutely does not make eye contact with Jackson when they trudge back down the aisle. _You and your boyfriend._

The mess isn’t really all that large, just a smelly puddle of oil on the white tile, glass shards sprinkled around. He juggles the three handles, goes to position the dustpan so he can sweep right into it but —

“Jinyoung,” Jackson prods, voice quiet. Stomach flipping, rolling uneasily, he looks up at Jackson. “Let me help?”

“Uh,” Jinyoung says eloquently. He hands Jackson the dustpan, then the mop when he motions for it. “Okay.” 

They make short, silent work of it; Jinyoung is always cleaning up messes big and small in his classroom and Jackson helpfully points out wherever Jinyoung misses a spot or a shard of glass. Jackson mops up the residual sticky stain when everything else is swept away.

It lulls Jinyoung into resignation. With this situation, with having to see Jackson and live with the painfully obvious result of his actions, which is that this might be the last time they ever see each other outside of Yugyeom’s school regardless of what Jackson might have said in his livestream — whether he was talking about Jinyoung or not. In the middle of the night, washed out under halogen bulbs, Jinyoung isn’t panicking anymore. He’s just sad.

“There we go,” Jackson says as he finishes wiping up. There’s a big wet patch of flooring separating them now and Jinyoung is too maudlin and dramatic not to think about how fitting it is.

“Thank you, Jackson-ssi,” Jinyoung says. He flounders around for a second, grasping for more to say, for _anything_ to say, but comes up short. 

Jackson gives him a sweet, simple, “you’re welcome.” He looks at Jinyoung a beat too long, then laughs, eyes cutting away to look at the mop. “I was gonna say ‘my pleasure’ but um. This isn’t really how I pictured my Saturday night going.”

Before he can stop himself, Jinyoung asks: “did you have something better to do?”

A pregnant pause hangs between them long enough for Jinyoung to regret his entire life. 

“Sorry — ” he starts.

“Actually — ” Jackson says at the same time. He chuckles a little. “I don’t, really. I just got off from my side gig.” 

Jinyoung chokes from the choice of words. Jackson’s eyes settle on him and the gaze is too sharp, too perceptive for Jinyoung not to squirm under it. His mouth goes dry when Jackson smirks at him, sultry and performative. “But you knew that, didn’t you?”

All of the blood in Jinyoung’s head drains out in one flush, leaving him whiter than a sheet. “W-what?”

Jackson walks right across the wet spot on the floor, abandoning the mop and dustpan against the shelving, letting the handles rest against puffed bags of shrimp chips. “My second job? I think you might be familiar with it.” He reaches out and pulls at Jinyoung’s pocket. 

Or, rather, Jinyoung realizes when he looks down, he’s pulling at the grinning Apeach keychain hanging out of it. They both smirk up at him. “ _Peachy_. Pretty cute. I think it suits you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys. long time no see right
> 
> as you can see i've been alive this whole time, writing stuff that isn't this, and at first it was kind of an accident? I got random little bursts of inspiration or i was writing for a fest. 
> 
> but then i got really busy at work, and at home, and then after i had that excuse i kept fretting over and over about this chapter because of how sad it is in comparison to the rest. after that i talked myself into thinking it wasn't any good anyway, so i didn't even want to look at it for a while. but i love this story, and i wanted to finish what i started -- and i looked at it again at the end of september with a fresh set of eyes and actually liked what i had so far. 
> 
> so here we are. what did you think? let me know here or on [twitter](https://twitter.com/sunnyseunie) or [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/sunnyseunie) :3 
> 
> have a good week!!

**Author's Note:**

> i can't mention single dad jackson jinson without mentioning this fic, which is the greatest thing that's ever happened to me: [We Built Our Own House by ttakjoha](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9435923/chapters/21350501)


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